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When I came of age musically in the mid-1970s, it was the exact wrong moment to become a Rolling Stones fan.

Having just missed what even then was acknowledged as their golden period — the four-year stretch from 1968’s Beggars Banquet to 1972’s Exile On Main St. — I was pumped with anticipation as I rode the bus to Sam the Record Man to snag the group’s first studio recording since the departure of guitarist Mick Taylor.

It was the spring of ’76, and after feasting on a string of appealingly gritty rockers like “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Jumping Jack Flash,” I tore the shrink wrap off Black and Blue, slapped it on my turntable and — what can I say? — the stench lingers still.

Half-baked jams like “Hot Stuff,” “Hey Negrita” and “Melody” reeked of a band without purpose, unsure of its next move.

It was to be the first of many disappointments from the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band,” whose music went from defining pop culture to being mercilessly buffeted by its whims and fancies in what seemed the blink of an eye.

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Somehow, these surly British rebels who had come to fame as a defiant counterpoint to the mop-topped Beatles had turned into decadent rock stars so immersed in drugs and money they lost touch with the pulsing blues rhythms that made them famous.

Sure, they would go on to put out competent, well received albums like Some Girls and Tattoo You, but they would never again reach the heights that made them a generational touchstone.

Still, they were the Stones, man, part of the ’60s triptych that included The Beatles and The Who, a potent force in music history. And unlike those two bands, they stayed intact.

All of which is a long-winded way of addressing the 50th anniversary concerts this month and last in London and New York, and the column I had intended to write about how the Stones have become a nostalgia-primped jukebox: crass, calculating, all about the money.

Break up already, I was primed to instruct. You’re celebrating 50 years of underdog, middle-finger-to-The Man hits and charging up to $600 a ticket?

2. You don’t sell out massive arenas like London’s O2 unless you’ve got something people still want to see.

While the Stones may have grown lazy and uninspired after five decades of rock star opulence, that thing that defined them in their heyday was still, in some way, intact.

“Please allow me to introduce myself,” snarled Jagger on a particularly nasty version of “Sympathy for the Devil.” “I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

So now I’m confused. Is this about money? The music? Or simply defying their critics? As is usually the case with The Stones, there’s no simple answer.

There are moments in that O2 show — with Keith Richards bearing down on his guitar, Mick Jagger gliding across the stage with almost feral intensity — when they appear to be playing as if their lives depend on it.

“No one should care if the Rolling Stones have broken up, should they?” Jagger asked in a 1987 Q Magazine interview.

“But with me, people seem to demand that I keep their youthful memories intact in a glass case specifically preserved for them and damn the sacrifices I have to make. ‘Oh, The Stones, it’s part of my youth, man,’ they say, because they saw you in Hyde Park 18 years ago . . . not that they’ve bought a record of yours in 15 years.”

It’s a love-hate relationship. We want you, but we resent you. If you break up we’ll die, our youthful memories crushed. But if you stay together, and have the audacity to grow older, we’ll blast you.

These 50th anniversary concerts from a band that happily sold out when it proved convenient may not be the Second Coming hardcore fans have longed for. But to quote a famous Stones song, they may, in some small way, be exactly what we need.

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